Unbeknownst to the audience, the Bad Guy had attached one of the phone electrodes to Nancy’s inner thigh.
She’d always been a bit of a masochist.
Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase (1939) shows the celebrated pre-adult detective determinedly faking evidence, concealing evidence, conspiring to break laws, breaking and entering, disorderly conduct, destruction of property, more breaking and entering, and indiscriminate shrieking when she finally finds herself in too much trouble to just face down. This is all in her relentless pursuit of the guilty party in a murder case involving a horse race track and two little old ladies who are tangled up in the rules of inheritance of a father who was apparently a little nuts.
Or maybe it’s just a plot device used to drive the story in a certain direction. Complete with a handle and everything!
My Arts Editor was approving of Drew’s forthright approach to solving the murder – I think – but it was all a little bit too pat for me.
Wait, is Nancy Drew’s middle name Patricia?
Great cinematography, OK dialog, hapless boyfriend. Face it, it’s from a B-list series, at best. Sure, Casablanca (1942) was also considered a B-list production when it was made, but this is no Casablanca. No brains needed, just a trifle of moral outrage.
And tolerance for another mildly incompetent police force.
